Moving On: State Sen. John Sparks

Editor’s note: This story is the second of a series about lawmakers departing the Oklahoma Legislature.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Senate Minority Leader John Sparks’ term has expired, but he’s losing only one of his jobs.

The Norman Democrat termed out this year after spending his full 12 years in the Legislature. But unlike many of his colleagues, his post-service life is pretty easy to nail down.

“I think I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing without going to Oklahoma City every day,” he said.

Sparks’ family has owned a ranch east of Sulphur for many years, and he continues to work on that while also working as a partner at his Norman law firm, Odom Sparks & Jones. He’s also a commissioner on the Cherokee Nation Gaming Commission.

He said the good thing about term limits is that members get to know when they’re done with lawmaking for good. In his time, he authored about 90 bills that were eventually signed. He’s proud of that, he said, considering he’s spent that time as a member of the minority party.

“It’s not that I was as able to force things through, but I was able to work across the aisle to reach agreements and seek solutions to common problems,” he said.

Near the end, there were some validating moments, he said. His caucus had pushed for years against the prevailing philosophy that the state’s government was overfunded.

“We knew it was going to be a problem, thinking ’There is always more fat to be cut,’” he said. “That argument finally failed in a dramatic fashion.”

He was referring to the teacher walkout, when most of the state’s common education students were let out of class for two weeks so they and their teachers could protest for higher investment in education.

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